Im/Ex-plosion

“I’m under a lot of pressure” seems to be synonymous with “I’m stressed out.”  But, since I think that the “I”–one’s experiencing self–is located at the intersection of the external/public world and the internal/private mind, it seems that the term “under” might be unnecessarily one-sided.  In other words, pressure pushes up as well as down.  Thinking about stress in terms of pressure–where it’s coming from and what it’s pushing on and what’s pushing back against it–seems appropriate.

Under normal conditions, people seem to live in a state of (relative) equilibrium between their internal and external worlds.  In other words, the activity of one’s mind and the activity of one’s body are essentially balanced.  Stress, however, (at least for me) seems to manifest in an imbalance between internal and external forces.  Either 1) there is extreme pressure exerted by outside forces that threatens to shut down or crush the productive functioning of the internal, or 2) there is a buildup of internal activity that finds no counterpart or release in the external world.

Situation 1 is what happens when one is overwhelmed by responsibility, work, etc, and the result is implosion.  This mode of stress is the sort we most commonly refer to–the world’s expectations are too great to be comfortably born.  Situation 2 is what happens when there’s an incredible, disproportionate amount of something–thoughts or emotions, say–going on inside the mind, and the result is explosion.  This second mode of stress has characterized my last four summers; I was reading loads and was full of ideas, but working full time at a job where no one cared, I had no place to exercise my intellectual restlessness. (Embarrassingly, it also characterizes the entirety of my stint as a teenager…sorry for all the angst, Mom and Dad).  In both cases, I became irritably touchy–explosive, in the most unpleasant way. 

Implosion is, however, markedly worse.  Explosion, at least, can be productive.  You can have an explosion of creative activity, but no one’s ever heard of creative implosion (and for good reason).  The result of implosion is apathy, paralysis, an utter inability to cope.  Implosion, therefore, is the enemy.

Thinking about stress this way–in terms of a balance of internal and external pressures–it seems to me that the way to counter intense pressure from outside forces (over which you have no direct control) is to work up an equally intense frenzy of internal activity.  The possibility of destructive implosion is then neutralized by an equal pressure from within.  By this account, external forces cannot on their own create stress, liberating the individual from the victim’s role. 

This seems potentially useful.  Although, at this point, a large mocha, neck massage, and speed-reading superpowers might be more useful.  It’s hard to say.